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Anyway, this is one of the easiest "yes" votes. A kaleidoscopic masterpiece that only gained relevance over time. Also, holy hell, Giancarlo Esposito is one of the most chameleonic actors ever. Compare Buggin' Out to his roles on Homicide and Breaking Bad -- you can hardly believe it's the same person.

Whoa Spike Lee is the guest?!

Ugh! We GET it, Cameron, you listen to that other podcast Unspooled where they watch GOOD movies.

I'd counter that violence in the face of racism, even if directed at a store, is self-defense.

I feel like I hear an echo. Anyway, this is one where I already had rated the film pretty highly, but I feel compelled to give it an extra half star (for whatever that's worth) after listening to the podcast. Not that they convinced me of anything or even really brought up anything that I hadn't already considered, but just talking and thinking about the film more made me really come to the realization that it is certainly deserving of being in top 25 or so, as it's top shelf in every possible way. As Amy pointed out, not enough people give Lee credit for being a brilliant director, and for what it's worth, my favorite shot of the film is the closeup silhouette of Mookie and Tina's lips as she chides him for trying to leave.

You had me at sings about shrimp. I need no other context. I'm in!

I'm saving my reaction for Monday, but I have to say I had never seen an Elvis movie before, and I was pleasantly surprised by how charming he was. Then I watched a 1985 Barbara Walters interview with Priscilla Presley, and I had a few second thoughts about recommending. But he's long gone, and this was an ....interesting watch.

This was my point. It’s misdirected. It’s not rational. I’m not saying that it should be rational. It’s human. That’s what makes it good. I’m not condemning them. I’m saying, as people, we sometimes get caught up in a moment of passion and we end up doing the wrong thing or attacking the wrong target. Burning the pizzeria does nothing. It doesn’t help anyone. It’s not going to improve their situation. It’s just masturbatory violence. It’s all release - nothing more. The time for violence (and of course I’m talking in hindsight) was when Radio was being choked. Yes, maybe more of them could have been hurt, or jailed, or killed, but MAYBE Radio might have lived. That’s when the violence might have done some good. It’s not just we should listen to MLK and Malcolm, but we also have to know when to apply their teaching. In this case, the people are passive (aside from yelling) as their friend is murdered, and violent when it’s just destruction for destruction’s sake. I think a lot of what Lee was saying was that we have to get our priorities straightened out (“Wake up!”). If we don’t have our heads on right, not only will things not get fixed, we’ll only make things worse. It’s a cautionary tale. Pick your battles and fight smart.

I guess when you see your best friend murdered in front of you, especially by someone who will get away with it based on precedent, you don't necessarily respond rationally. What was anyone to do? Murder the police officer in retaliation? Even attacking the officer is a pretty high possibility of getting himself killed. But the reality is, yes, the pizzeria didn't kill Radio. If you're Mookie at that point, you've seen your boss and his racist ass son, respond to your friend by destroying his radio which is the thing he treasures so much it's his literal name. You've seen him yell racist shit at your friends while he did this. Is Mookie going to have a job tomorrow? Can he show up there and work after this (either by his own choice or Sal's)? I can't say Mookie did the right thing by destroying a pizzeria in response to police violence against people of color but I also can't say he did the wrong thing. As Amy and Paul pointed out, destroying the pizzeria may have (inadvertently) redirected the violence against people. I get it his reaction even if, in retrospect, it seems like there were alternatives.

What I like about this quote being used here, and its context in the movie, is how the violence at the end, while understandable, feels misdirected. Based on what Malcolm X was saying there, violence as a recourse is fine as long as it’s in service of defending yourself from the people in power trying to hold you down. However, in the movie, they fail miserably at this. Sal’s power is illusionary. He runs a pizza shop. He doesn’t have any power over anyone outside of his own tiny shop. And even then, what power he has is challenged by pretty much everyone - including his sons. No, the time to act was when Radio Raheem was being choked to death. That was the moment. And they miss it completely. Everyone was so busy yelling that they forgot to actually do anything. The violence comes AFTER the moment. The end up attacking the symptom and not they disease. In a depressing way, again, this reminds me of where we are in America today. We stand by helplessly while horrific atrocities occur right before or eyes, and our immediate response is to what? Shoot off an angry 240 character missive into the void, as if that means anything. All that does is satisfy our own ego that we’re saying the right thing, that people will witness us saying the right thing, but it doesn’t mean we’re actually doing the right thing.* *I honestly didn’t intend to finish this post with this phrase.

Here's my remix of the most recent closing the plugbag theme song. Enjoy! Soundcloud File

I have more to say but work is busy. Regardless, I'm surprised neither brought up that Radio's speech about his rings is heavily inspired by Night Of The Hunter whe Robert Mitchum has LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles.

So, I was only recently introduced to HDTGM, but I got Stitcher Premium and have now listened to all 215 episodes (watched Serenity last night and listening to 216 today) in a matter of a few months. I decided to wait until I had listened to them all before joining the forums, so here I am. Now I just need to get used to waiting for new episodes.

That's how I viewed it. Especially because they made a point of saying he hadn't said one word yet. Kind of like (brace yourselves) Tommy.

What was great about that movie was that JCVD couldn't pronounce replicant to save his life so every time it came out as replicunt, plus that wig was amazing.

Here are some more items that belong on the list of 'Things We're Expected to Believe the Kid Programmed Into this Game': - Djimon Hounsou occasionally speaks in a foreign language (French, I believe). Are we to assume the kid knows this language and thought it would be useful for Hounsou's character to sporadically speak in this language? - The first time The Rules misses Baker Dill, he takes off his shoes and starts walking in the water. Has the kid only programmed the character to reach Baker Dill in a straight line? - Unless I misinterpreted things, when Hathaway and Mcconaughey are talking, she makes a comment that he took her virginity when she was 16. Did the kid choose to give his parents this backstory or were his parents very open with him about how they met?

There is one shot in the film where the son is looking at a photo of him and Mcconaughey and written on the back it says "me and dad back then" This phrasing bothers me. I guess that it is meant to be vague so as not to give away anything, but who would actually write it that way? No one is going is to confuse the picture as happening in the present or future. All pictures are of something that occurred "back then". Why not write the actual year or date that the event took place? Or give some sort of additional information about what happened then so that when you or someone else re-visits that picture there is some proper context for what you are looking at?

As a programmer, I have a thick skin for software nonsense in movies. So when Mr. The Rules was explaining the twist I was ready for some strained metaphors, and it wouldn't be too interesting to hear about the painstaking process of a thirteen year old googling "how to program a game". However, one metaphor that drove me crazy was this bit that Mr. Rules shoehorned into his Catch The Tuna explanation: "The lighthouse. Light/dark. One/zero. The fundamental process." I understand that "ones and zeroes" is a 75% of what people know about computers, sure. What I don't like is how it misconstrues lighthouses! A lighthouse doesn't blink on and off. Even in the background of that scene it's clear that the light is always on while it rotates in a circle. So it doesn't have two states of "one/zero" at all. You could argue it has at least 360 states, one for every degree of rotation, or more depending on how high-fidelity the kid has made the graphics in his MILF-banging simulator.

I don't have it handy, but I recall the line about the step-father's profession at the end was that he was "in construction." I didn't take that to mean that they weren't actually wealthy, but rather that the step-father was mobbed-up — which would explain his overall affect, propensity to violence, and the inability for the son/mother to seek "justice" through traditional channels.

I was 13 going onto 14 as a freshman basically because of when my birthday falls in the year and the pretty rigid rules for my school district of when you can start elementary school, so I wasn't so surprised about his age. Also the fact that he's a prodigy can further alienate a kid in a shitty situation, further pushing him into the world he was changing to get closer to his dead dad.

At the end of the movie, there’s a news report that identifies him as thirteen and says he goes to high school. Which is a bit young for High School, but he’s supposedly bright so maybe he skipped a grade? I think it’s less that he’s been exposed to certain types of media than he’s been placed in a shitty situation. Like, I don’t believe that his mother cheated on his father, but I think their relationship happened too soon after his father’s death (in his mind anyway) that it felt like a betrayal. Regardless, he only has a single, half-formed memory of his real father yelling about a fish and almost a decade of being with a shitty, abusive, alcoholic. It’s kind of the tragedy that Jason touches on in the episode. Without a healthy role model, the dysfunction gets normalized. He doesn’t have any other frame of reference for how a healthy adult functions and that plays out in his version of adulthood in the game.

You're correct, but after that it's standard NPC talk. It's another clue to the video game-ness of the movie in how sandbox games like GTA or Red Dead Redemption you can get a mission from an NPC, but once you come back to them after that initial moment, they only talk to you in a generic manner. The first time mentioning the maid would have been included by the son's coding, but after that the seeds had been planted and at this point the game was trying to right the path being taken. The son has to keep upping the ante as the game is doing just as much in the opposite to keep Dill as a fisherman, so it makes sense in that he keeps climbing and raising the stakes as the game is trying to give Dill what is essentially his endgame in catching Justice. In a large game like the various sandboxes, they give you the ability to fight the big boss early in some instances, but it's near impossible to do so, like in the recent zombie game Days Gone where you can take on the biggest zombie horde at any time, but you will die quickly 9 out of 10 times because your equipment isn't high quality and you haven't really leveled up, but you play a bit longer and eventually when you take that same group on, your odds are flipped and the chance of beating them is greatly increased. So by doing these various things not only is Dill finding more reason to go through with the murder, but the son is as well as it was stated by Jason Clarke that the kid was looking for ways to kill him.

stars align

Happy birthday Hayes, I know I've been absent from these forums for over a year, but my father always told me that absence makes the heart grow stronger. See you all next year.